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SMW Central HackJam - Rules and Info

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Hello and welcome to the official start of HackJam! Thank you everyone for waiting patiently during the team-building period, but now it’s time to being working on your entries! (You have been waiting, haven’t you? #ab{>_>}) Before that, though, make sure to read all the rules and guidelines below so your entry won’t get disqualified.

Remember, the deadline is Monday, December 13th, at 12:00 PM EST!



Team Rules:
  • No solo entries are permitted in this contest.
  • Each team must consist of between 2-5 members. No more than five people can be on a team.
  • Anyone that contributes materially to a team’s entry (levels, graphics, music, etc.) is considered a team member. This does not apply to publicly available resources used in your team’s entry (see Submission Rules for crediting guidelines).
  • Note that giving feedback or testing entries does not make you a team member, so there are no limitations there.
  • You cannot be a member of more than one team.
  • Banned users cannot participate in this contest.
  • While we allow off-site persons to join a team, their identity must be easily verifiable, and they must follow all of the above rules. At least one team member has to have a site account to submit the team’s entry.
  • Any entry that does not comply with the above rules will be disqualified.
  • You cannot make your own thread unless you have a team. Solo threads will be closed and repeat offenders will be disqualified from the contest.

Keep in mind that if you haven’t finished building a team yet, there’s still plenty of time to do so! Here’s some guidelines to help you out:
  • Try to have good synergy in your team. If you're good on level design and graphics but need help with music, look for a music partner!
  • On the other hand, don't be too picky when building a team. This isn't a ranked contest, so use this as a chance to connect with other users!
  • Make sure your teammates or those interested can easily connect with you! This is supposed to be a cooperative event, so make sure you all have a place to chat and share resources.
  • Remember, you only need two people on a team to submit your entry, so don't spend the whole event looking for partners!
  • No one is required to join your team. If someone says they're not interested, leave them alone! If you harass other users to join your team, you may receive a punishment as per site rules regarding harassment.

Note About Team Members Dropping Out:

It will be inevitable that, during HackJam, a member of someone’s team will have to drop out due to real life obligations. This is understandable, and teams should not pressure a team member into staying if they are no longer able to participate. In the event this happens, that person is still considered a member of the team and cannot be replaced unless all their contributions are removed from the team’s entry.

To give some examples, if a member of a five-person team drops out, the team cannot find a new member unless that person’s contributions are removed from the entry. Four-person teams or lower can add new members, but still cannot replace a team member that dropped out. If someone from a two-person team has to drop out, the other member can still work on the entry by themself if they so choose. (This should not be used as a loophole to work on a solo entry.)

Finally, it should be mentioned that teams have the right to remove a member of their team if the group decides that they have not been contributing to their team. Like in the above cases, though, the entirety of that person’s contributions must be replaced before the team can look for a replacement member.



Entry Rules:
  • You can only submit one entry per team.
  • Your team’s entry must either be Standard or Kaizo difficulty.
  • If your team’s entry has a mix of Standard or Kaizo levels, it will be judged as a Kaizo entry.
  • While Standard entries can be any Standard difficulty, all Kaizo entries must be Kaizo: Light.
  • In addition, while we're still working on new Kaizo difficulty definitions, we strongly advise teams not to make their entries harder than their estimation of a “Medium” Kaizo: Light level, in order to prevent putting a heavy workload on our Kaizo judges.
  • All levels used in your team’s entry must be created within the submission period.
  • Your team’s entry must include an Infinite Lives ASM patch or a life farm of some sort.
  • Use of MSU-1 is not permitted.
  • Your team’s entry must be playable in some fashion. It must work on the most recent stable versions of all commonly used emulators (SNES9x, BSNES) with zero modification required; work on flashcart and console emulators such as the Super NT; and no deliberate hardlocks, softlocks, or crashes should be present. Any entries that do not follow the spirit of these rules will be disqualified.

Entry Guidelines:
  • There is no theme requirement. Anything goes!
  • Barring anything listed in the above rules, your team’s entry can use any resources, available or original.
  • There is no limit to the amount of levels in your team’s entry, nor a limit to exits or screens.
  • While there is no overall size limit to entries, we heavily advise not going overboard on length. We expect entries to be 30 minutes to 2 hours long, and not much longer than that. Judges can choose to disqualify an entry that vastly exceeds these expectations.
  • All aspects of your team’s entry will be judged, not just the levels. Everything present in your entry should be changed from the original game.
  • There are no restrictions to the format of your team’s entry; in other words, it does not have to follow the conventional SMW format. Be creative!



Submission Rules:
  • Your team must submit a single .bps patch of your entire entry. Submitting anything else will disqualify your team, and submitting a ROM file will lead to site punishment.
  • Your team will present your submission by making a thread in the HackJam subforum and tagging the thread “Completed” and either “Standard” or “Kaizo” depending on what your entry is. (It cannot be both.)
  • Unlike other contests, all team members must be identified in the submission. This can be done in the entry itself or via the credits list below. (We also encourage making a team name!)
  • Your team must include a credits list, either in the OP of the submission thread or as a text file, thoroughly detailing what each team member contributed. It should also list any external resources used.
  • If an off-site but publicly available resource is used, your team must provide a direct link to it in the credits list. This includes BaseROMs.
  • We recommend that your team place your submission in the OP of the thread to make it easily findable for the hosts and others.
  • Your team’s thread can also be used for communicating with your teammates and feedback from others. However, if your entry is not present and visible somewhere in the thread, then it will be disqualified.



Judging & Prizes:
  • Standard entries and Kaizo entries will each have a separate set of three judges.
  • Entries will not be scored; instead, the judges will review each level qualitatively, similar to QLDC. They will then come to a consensus on the best overall entries of the event. The number of “best in show” entries will be determined by the judges.
  • If the judges determine an entry was incorrectly tagged Standard or Kaizo, they will give the entry to the proper judging team. (For example, if the Standard judges find that a Standard entry has a Kaizo level included, they will give that entry to the Kaizo judges.)
  • In addition to the judges, users will be able to vote on their favorite entries. This will be done in the same style as C3, with different categories users can vote on (including “best in show”).
  • There will be separate trophies for judge picks and user picks, in addition to the usual participation and judge/host trophies. (As always, disqualified entries will not receive a participation trophy.) Trophy designs are currently in development.

Standard Judges:

Kaizo Judges:



Whoo, that’s a lot of rules isn’t it? #smrpg{mlem} If you have any questions or would like some clarification on any of the rules, feel free to ask in this thread.

And if you forgot already, the deadline is Monday, December 13th, at 12:00 PM EST!

Happy jamming everyone!!!
This is not a submission thread!

Submission posts in this thread will be deleted.
Originally posted by Noivern
Your team’s entry must include an Infinite Lives ASM patch or a life farm of some sort.

Is is fine to include an alternative version alongside the entry without infinite lives? I assume judges will gravitate towards the version with infinite lives for the sake of not taking too much of their time.
That is perfectly fine.
Originally posted by Noivern
While there is no overall size limit to entries, we heavily advise not going overboard on length. We expect entries to be 30 minutes to 2 hours long, and not much longer than that. Judges can choose to disqualify an entry that vastly exceeds these expectations.

How does optional content such as bonus challenges at the ends of levels factor into this? If you can beat the hack (i.e. get all the exits) within 2 hours but clearing every challenge takes significantly longer, will this affect the scoring?
As with all contests, everything accessible in your submission will be considered for review. While judges can be a little more lenient with optional content at their discretion, I would not use this as an excuse to go far beyond the 2-hour time limit.

(sorry for the late response, been very busy today)
Originally posted by DeppySlide
As with all contests, everything accessible in your submission will be considered for review. While judges can be a little more lenient with optional content at their discretion, I would not use this as an excuse to go far beyond the 2-hour time limit.

(sorry for the late response, been very busy today)

Regarding "everything accessible", what about collectibles, especially if the team wants to go beyond the 5 Dragon Coins? These challenges in question are optional i.e. they hide no bonus levels or something like that.
Collectibles will still be factored into the judges' reviews, but we would not disqualify an entry solely because of the length it takes to collect them, assuming they do not gate off other parts of your entry.

It's worth keeping in mind that "30 minutes to 2 hours" isn't a hard rule, but more of a guideline; it's okay if your entry is a little longer or a little shorter than that.
you guys really love flaunting the possibility of getting disqualified by something you can't gauge huh
We're not flaunting anything. Level length is pretty measurable with a tester or two, or even when testing it yourselves. And I think "30 minutes to 2 hours" makes it pretty clear how long we're expecting entries to be. We're not looking for ways to disqualify entries, just preventing the judges from having to play twenty 10-hour long hacks.
Updated the rules to include a mention about making threads without a team.
By request, the HackJam deadline is now extended to Saturday, December 11th, 12:00 PM EST! This will be our only extension for this event, so don't dilly-dally!
Hello I'm Kitikuchan.
I'm the leader for a project we're working on for Hackjam.
Is it OK to advertise another hack we are also making in our HackJam project?
⊂二二二( ^ω^)二⊃
Yeah, it's perfectly fine to do that.
Hi, are we allowed to submit our entry to the hack section before judging begins?
I think for now you should wait until after the deadline to submit entries to the hack section. That's less than a week from now so I don't think that's asking too much.
After being held at gunpoint by the villain bebn legg, the deadline for HackJam has been extended another two days: the deadline is now Monday, December 13th, 12:00 PM EST. Use this extra time wisely by destroying your weekend wth 72 hours of crunch time. Or just make a nice hot cup of cocoa and work at a reasonable pace. #smrpg{haha}
Thank you so much! I could really go for a weekend of crunch time and a hot cup of cocoa right about now. #smrpg{mlem}
What is a Lunar Magic, and can I eat it?
Originally posted by DeppySlide
After being held at gunpoint by the villain hero bebn legg, the deadline for HackJam has been extended another two days

ftfy mate
It didn't make much sense for me why the deadline ended up being on saturday instead of sun- or monday. Good that is has been rectified now.
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